


a decision to make

by mak (cold_blue_eyes)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, Getting Together, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 00:44:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13846482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cold_blue_eyes/pseuds/mak
Summary: Stiles was tired.It’s been years of fighting his fears, his anxiety and a life of changes that always kept on coming. He had used guns and baseball bats, and when he didn’t have those Stiles aimed his words like sharp knives, but the fight still took its toll on his body.He's searching for something to keep him afloat. He finds that in Derek.





	a decision to make

Stiles was tired. 

It’s been years of fighting his fears, his anxiety and a life of changes that always kept on coming. He had used guns and baseball bats, and when he didn’t have those Stiles aimed his words like sharp knives, but the fight still took its toll on his body. 

Sometimes Stiles wanted to just close his eyes and let the world burn around him, but he’d never do that. There was a reason for him to keep fighting. Family and friends, people he loved with all his heart, they deserved to live, and Stiles has lost too many of them already.

Every now and then Stiles wondered if he could make it all stop. Not for himself, but for everyone else. He’d seen how they’ve suffered, he’d seen them in pain, but those moments came and went and in their wake they left them stronger and with more desire to keep living.

Stiles could only hope that would last forever.

But some days he was just tired. 

“You’re okay?” Asked Derek a second or third time, Stiles didn’t know. They were in the Jeep, the car idling at the curb in front of the Sheriff’s house, all dark with no one inside. Stiles was there just for the weekend and he still got roped into a chase in the forest and the inevitable fight against the monster of the week.

“I don’t know.” Stiles ran a hand over his eyes, trying to scrub away the exhaustion making his eyelids droop.

He heard Derek’s sigh from the passenger seat, and Stiles could feel the man’s eyes on him. Stiles glanced at him. 

“Do you need to talk? Did something happen?” Derek asked the questions in his serious but caring tone. After everything that went down he ended up adjusting to his place as a Beta of the pack, and since Derek was the most mature of them he often found himself advising the younger kids or being a helping hand for anyone that needed. 

“I don’t know, man. For real.” Stiles tapped his head against the headrest and exhaled a breath, closing his eyes. “I feel like I’m stretching myself to thin. There’s work and cases and a future for me in DC, but then there’s here. There’s you guys.” Stiles opened his eyes to look at Derek and his concerned face, his brows drawn together and eyes directed at him.

“You think you should make a choice,” stated Derek.

“I don’t know if I can keep doing this. Flying in and out every weekend driving and chasing and fighting, and investigating, solving cases, interviewing people. I haven’t studied any spells in months, Derek. I don’t even know if I can harness whatever spark’s left in me.”

The frustration poured out of him and even if freeing those words had a positive effect on him, it was just so small Stiles barely felt it in the grand scheme of things. 

Derek rested a hand on Stiles' knee and squeezed it gently. There was some kind of energy seeping out of him, almost like Derek could draw not only the pain from his body. Stiles put a hand over Derek’s. 

“You know we will support whatever decision you make, right?”

Stiles felt a pang in his heart at the hesitant way Derek said those words. Like there was a truth hidden behind them, and Stiles didn’t want to make up scenarios in his head, but he wished someone would just ask him to stay so the decision would be easier.

“I know.”

“And wherever you go, we will be there with you, or be here for you.”

Stiles nodded.

Derek squeezed his knee again and released him, but Stiles didn’t let his hand go away. He turned Derek’s hand around and threaded their fingers.

“Saying no to my job will kill me, you know? Because it’s a dream come true, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted to do. But you guys are my life. And I just can’t see myself staying away, and can’t see myself turning my back on you,” said Stiles. If his words were aimed specifically at Derek at the moment, the man didn’t need to know. 

Stiles brought their joined hands to his chest and squeezed them against his sternum. He was sure Derek could hear his heart and the way it beat erratically, Derek could hear his heavy breathing and even smell the anxiety coming out of every pore. 

It seemed like for a moment Derek didn’t even know what to say, and that made him human, somehow. Of course, the man wouldn’t have all the answers, and he didn’t need to have them. At the moment Stiles just needed someone to be there, and Derek certainly never disappointed him that way.

All of this made him realize that someday, someone might need him to be the same, to do the same. And if he wouldn’t be here, he’d never be able to keep them from breaking apart. 

The decision seemed easy when he put it that way, but Stiles didn’t want to be selfless, didn’t want to think about everyone else just for a moment because he was also tired of not worrying about his own life because there was someone else’s at stake. 

And he felt guilty for doing so.

“What are you thinking?” Asked Derek. 

“That I rejoice the fact that werewolves can’t read minds,” Stiles answered him, simply. He glanced at Derek and felt his lips curling up in a saddened, drained way. 

Derek extended his other hand and put it on Stiles’ nape, bringing them closer together. It was a surprising move for Stiles, who didn’t know how to act as their foreheads touched over the gearshift. However, he loved the way Derek grounded him.

He loved that something, someone could still do that.

“We will always be with you- I will always be by your side, Stiles. Whenever you need, whatever you do. This is what pack means, we take care of our own. And we live and die by them.”

Stiles snorted. “I would like not to worry about dying for one day, though.”

“You worry too much about that,” Derek whispered those words, but they were fierce like he was angry at Stiles for carrying those feelings with him.

“I only have one life, Derek. I can’t come back from the dead like Peter did, I can’t become immortal through some crazy magic, I only have this life and it’s fragile, even though I’m not.”

“No, you’re not.”

Stiles felt his lips curling up again.

“But I can’t help but break apart a little every now and then.” The admission almost brought tears to the surface, but Stiles held them at bay. 

Derek took a harsh breath and put his arms around Stiles, pulling him close to his chest. At that moment a part of Stiles let himself go because he was sure Derek was still holding him together. It just wasn’t easy to forget about everything when he knew the moment he drove away from Beacon Hills again he’d be alone in the world.

If that wasn’t a reason enough to make a choice, Stiles didn’t know what would it be.

“What if I come to hate this place, Derek? What if I come back and I just hate everything? It would kill me to not have anywhere else to go, anything else to do.” Stiles pressed his face to Derek’s neck, wanting to hide from the world for a minute.

Derek caressed his back, roaming his hands up and down, soothing Stiles with the sound of his quiet and calm breath.

“We can help you, Stiles.  _ I  _  can help you. And everyone you love is right here, aren’t they? I’m sure no one will leave you, especially if you choose to stay here.” 

“I love you, too,” mumbled Stiles. He didn’t think much of those words, because if he thought he’d want to redact them, and now it was too late. He just didn’t care anymore, and he only realized that when he started to melt into Derek’s arms.

His breathing went from erratic to soft, and Stiles felt heavy enough to sleep right there. Once again he wondered if Derek could seep away all his worries like he did with pain, or maybe that was just something that happened between the two of them.

With great effort, Stiles managed to carve some space between them, enough so he could take a long intake of air, put his head back in place and try to not seem so fragile, when minutes ago he guaranteed he wasn’t.

Derek knew him better than that, though.

“Thanks for this,” said Stiles, gesturing loosely to the space between them.

“Anytime.” Derek looked almost shy, disarmed right now like he was the one that bared himself naked.

In those hazel eyes, there was something Stiles always had seen but never let himself believe it was what he thought it was. Maybe it was wrong of his part to assume, but the way Derek looked at him sometimes was more than just how you looked at a friend, and Stiles would know that because he was the same. Not just once he let his desires run wild while alone in his room, and more often than not, at least in the past, those fantasies had included Derek.

Derek probably smelled it on him a thousand times.

“If I kiss you right now, will I ruin this?” The question seemed to catch Derek off guard, because his lips twitched, but only for a second before this tiny smirk appeared on them.

“No. Well, maybe if you ask again.”

Stiles snorted and then leaned close to Derek as his heartbeat went wild inside his chest. He stopped at the last minute, hovering close to Derek’s lips, breathing in the same air. This felt like a long time coming.

Derek was the one that closed the distance, pressing his mouth to Stiles’, opening his lips to allow his tongue to find the inside of Stiles’ mouth, tasting him. Stiles heard his own moan at the intrusion, and soon their hands fought to find purchase. Stiles knew at the back of his mind he was wasting gas with the Jeep still idling in the background, but he was completely lost to the taste of Derek and the way he smelled this close to Stiles. Derek’s stubble rasped on Stiles’ fairly smooth skin, and he wouldn’t mind being covered in burns because those kinds of marks didn’t feel like they’d hurt as much as anything his skin had suffered already.

Perhaps the absence of them would hurt more, and Stiles felt that in his heart as they took a moment to breathe.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since forever,” revealed Stiles.

“I know.” It wasn’t cocky at all the way Derek said it, although it did make Stiles feel self-conscious. “I’m glad you did it now, though.”

“Me too.”

Stiles pressed his lips against Derek’s again.

He made his decision.

 


End file.
